1. Technical Field
The invention relates to the field of LED lighting technology, and more particularly to a LED filament and a LED filament bulb.
2. Description of the Related Art
A light emitting diode (LED) is a solid semiconductor device capable of converting electrical energy into visible light. Due to the LED light source has advantages such as energy-saving, long lifetime and environmental safety, LED is an optimum substitute for the conventional light source and can be widely spread.
A conventional LED filament bulb generally includes a LED filament, a stem, a transparent lampshade such as a spherical lampshade, and a lamp holder such as a threaded lamp holder. The transparent lampshade and the stem are fixedly connected to the lamp holder, the stem is located/situated in the transparent lampshade and has electrodes disposed thereon and connected to the LED filament so as to supply power to the LED filament. As shown in FIG. 1, the LED filament includes a carrier 11 and a conductive lead 15. A conductive electrode 13 disposed on the carrier 11 and the conductive lead 15 are connected with each other by an adhesive material 14. The carrier 11 has multiple (i.e., more than one) LED chips 12 disposed thereon, and the LED chips 12 are connected in series, in parallel, or in series and parallel. During a process of producing/manufacturing the conventional LED filament bulb, the step of mounting/assembling the LED filament onto the stem is mostly operated manually. Since a position of the electrode E0 on the stem may be inconsistent (e.g. the possible positions respectively marked by the solid circle and the dotted circle in FIG. 1), in order to connect the conductive lead 15 of the LED filament to the electrode E0 on the stem, an external force is needed to tie the two parts for the convenience of welding, and thereby an external pulling/pushing force is applied onto the conductive lead 15 of the LED filament while the alignment for welding, which would easily cause the conductive lead 15 of the LED filament to be fallen off or broken and consequently cause the failure of component.